Khodorkovskii only had seven billion.

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Still below zero this morning and it's raining.

In Viktor's class we talked about another of Russia's social problems - this time homelessness. Surprisingly for a Russian he is very open with discussing his country's faults. We moved on to the more comfortable topic of Oligarchs, especially Roman Abramovich. He has twice as much money - 14 billion dollars - as the second richest man in Russia.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, many businessmen have become extremely rich. Many of them have broken laws in doing so. Russia has vast oil supplies, and companies such as SibNeft' - owned by Abramovich - are some of the wealthiest in the world.

It was interesting to hear Viktor's point of view on the rise of Novye Russkie, 'new Russians' since perestroika. Whereas there used to be a feeling of working together for the Soviet Union (as recently as the 1980s under the leadership of Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko) it is now every man for himself. People do not care for anyone apart from those close to them; Viktor was not surprised that so many walked past the stabbed man on ulitsa Nekrasova.

Olga took us for a lesson of grammar and a lesson of literature. In literature we read three poems by Esenin, a countryside poet who wrote in the 1910s. The texts she brings for us are all more or less accessible and her reading aloud is relaxing, especially on a dark tuesday afternoon. At twenty one minutes past two I got up from the table and fell asleep on the sofa in the corner.

Katya is taking me to the theatre again tonight. It will be good to enjoy Yaroslavl for it's good places once again instead of dwelling on the negatives. I have learned that the town is not always the attractive and friendly place that it is made it seem in books, but it does have a lot of things to appreciate.

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Photos

Yaroslavl symbols.
The bear (oblast' symbol), Yaroslavl's age, a Yarpivo tent and a Church in the background.